Wireless local area network (WLAN) deployments have many applications that govern client association and roaming between APs. Previous optimizations that determine client association trends or load balancing using roaming policies are based on the combination of Wi-Fi radio characteristics, spectrum availability, and type of client traffic. These optimizations, however, are agnostic of backend infrastructure of Wi-Fi APs. The time required for a client to roam can take hundreds of milliseconds depending on the backend infrastructure—e.g., if the client roams between APs coupled to different switches in the backend infrastructure. However, an intra-switch roam (e.g., a roam between APs coupled to the same switch) can take only a few milliseconds (e.g., 10 milliseconds).
In addition, the optimizations mentioned above also ignore the effect that multi-tenancy Wi-Fi services have on roaming. The multi-tenancy Wi-Fi services permit a single AP to have a common service set identifier (SSID) provisioned for multiple services providers (SP) where service level agreements (SLAs) could vary based on the SP type. The time required for a client device to roam can vary depending on the SLAs and the provisioning of the APs. As such, the backend infrastructure and the SLAs can cause the time required for a client device to roam to vary widely.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures. It is contemplated that elements disclosed in one embodiment may be beneficially utilized on other embodiments without specific recitation.